In this lecture, the great political and philosophical problem with no name, that has been puzzling and convulsing America and the world for decades, at last...
There’s certainly room for a dispassionate analysis of the social battle over discrimination and the presumptions made by and motivations of those who oppose it, and even a relatively generous analysis of those who engage in it or even advocate for it.
This is not it though. Underneath all of the pseudo-scholarly trappings, this is just a painfully blatant bit of apologia, attempting to somehow normalize bigotry.
The author’s intellectual dishonesty is neatly illustrated when they address the fact that there’s no commonly accepted umbrella term for those who oppose bigotry. They present a number of possible explanations for that fact, but conveniently fail to mention the rather self-evident actual reason for it - because opposition to it is such a fundamental moral position that it’s rightly seen as simply the default, and the only thing that might need a name to distinguish it is an opposing view.
Exactly as it’s the case that there is no, because there need be no, umbrella term for those who oppose theft, or rape, or murder.
As if that wasn’t enough, the author again reveals their intellectual dishonesty in the section in which they address the assertion of “Kingists” that “aKingists” engage in hate.
Everything in response to that is then framed as if the “Kingists” accuse the “aKingists” of hating the credo of “Kingism” or of hating those who practice “Kingism.”
But that’s not what “Kingists” are referring to when they accuse “aKingists” of hate. They’re rather obviously referring to the hate that in fact defines the “aKingist” position - the hate of some other race/ethnicity/gender/etc. “Kingists” accuse “aKingists” of hate simply because hate is the specific thing the practice of which defines their position.
And I have little doubt that the author goes on to reveal their fundamental intellectual dishonesty some more, but that was more than enough for me.
There’s certainly room for a dispassionate analysis of the social battle over discrimination and the presumptions made by and motivations of those who oppose it, and even a relatively generous analysis of those who engage in it or even advocate for it.
This is not it though. Underneath all of the pseudo-scholarly trappings, this is just a painfully blatant bit of apologia, attempting to somehow normalize bigotry.
The author’s intellectual dishonesty is neatly illustrated when they address the fact that there’s no commonly accepted umbrella term for those who oppose bigotry. They present a number of possible explanations for that fact, but conveniently fail to mention the rather self-evident actual reason for it - because opposition to it is such a fundamental moral position that it’s rightly seen as simply the default, and the only thing that might need a name to distinguish it is an opposing view.
Exactly as it’s the case that there is no, because there need be no, umbrella term for those who oppose theft, or rape, or murder.
As if that wasn’t enough, the author again reveals their intellectual dishonesty in the section in which they address the assertion of “Kingists” that “aKingists” engage in hate.
Everything in response to that is then framed as if the “Kingists” accuse the “aKingists” of hating the credo of “Kingism” or of hating those who practice “Kingism.”
But that’s not what “Kingists” are referring to when they accuse “aKingists” of hate. They’re rather obviously referring to the hate that in fact defines the “aKingist” position - the hate of some other race/ethnicity/gender/etc. “Kingists” accuse “aKingists” of hate simply because hate is the specific thing the practice of which defines their position.
And I have little doubt that the author goes on to reveal their fundamental intellectual dishonesty some more, but that was more than enough for me.